"The (Olympic) torch has been passed..."

The Washington Post reports today that the Baltimore-Washington area has lost its bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.

"Chairman Charles H. Moore said that his team today discussed substantively for the first time their concern that the IOC might harbor resentment toward Washington on political grounds, including talk of a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq and Congress's 1999 questioning of IOC then-president Juan Antonio Samaranch and other officials over the Salt Lake City Olympic bribery scandal."

Thank God!

Of course, DC Mayor Anthony Williams "could not conceal his disappointment."

Yo! Your Honor! Have you ever tried to get across this God-forsaken town of yours? Hell, you probably haven't had to open your own car door since you got that job! There's no direct route across town, mister. At some point you've gotta get off one interstate and get on another, after going through a couple of lights and maybe some unexpected dumb-ass roadblock. (Example: The easiest thing in the world to do would be to build a direct exit ramp from the Anacostia Freeway westbound to Pennsylvania Avenue westbound. But do we do that? Noooooooo!!!)

And you wanna bring the Olympics here? As it currently stands, they already couldn't pave enough of the mid-Atlantic to accommodate the traffic.

Then there's the price of housing! My God, man, we can't all inherit Marion Berry's old cash cow! Some of us have to decide whether to move to West Virginia and spend two hours on a train just to have a front lawn. You think it'll get any cheaper once the Big Games move in? And please don't tell me about job opportunities. There are already plenty of low-paying service jobs that citizens of African and Latin American descent have to shuffle to, one after the other, before they each go home to their over-priced slum-lord's dream that's gonna be torn down in the next two years for yet another set of "luxury apartment homes." (My goodness, where are all our maids going to live?)

You got bigger fish to fry, old man. First, get on the damn ballot. You may be the best mayor this city has had in years (which isn't saying a lot, but it's saying something).

Then fire all of Berry's distant relatives/old drinking buddies/drug contacts/horse-betting agents still languishing on the payroll. (Save some time; look into the Division of Motor Vehicles first.)

Then, after you get re-elected (and as one who's never voted Democratic, even I think you've got a shot), try and make the inner city livable for the average human being.

You'll get more than a Gold Medal, Your Honor. You'll make history.

It's not the end of the world. Just ask Tony Kornheiser.